


trails of warmth

by ferim



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Felix Hugo Fraldarius and Sylvain Jose Gautier's Non-Blue Lions Paired Ending, M/M, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferim/pseuds/ferim
Summary: the ground is cold. the snow is cold. blood is all over, all dark in contrast to suffocating white. felix hates the cold.felix walks back home.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	trails of warmth

**Author's Note:**

> do you guys ever think about work song by hozier so much that the chorus is permanently stuck in your brain and you can't help but think it's sylvix? yeah
> 
> was writing another thing but i wanted to get this out regardless of the time. this was really just me free writing but i hope it's still clear enough to read. it's late tho so i will Sleep.

It’s cold.

Felix thinks it’s too cold. He hates it — how snow has always been cold. It’s cold all over, and blurry eyes are all he can use to see it fall all over him.

The ground is cold. The snow is cold. Blood is all over, all dark in contrast to suffocating white. Felix hates the cold.

A child is kneeling beside him, his blurry eyes show. Her hands positioned in prayer, she’s crying. Felix can’t seem to hear her clearly, maybe it’s the snow. It’s the snow, he thinks. All he hears is her saying sorry.

She lays him down comfortably, as much as her small body can do so in the white snow. He wants to ask why she’s doing this. He’s tired, never asked for her help. It was him that fought off those thieves, the ones holding her captive. Between them was nothing more than a glance, a short moment of eye contact, one happenstance before he threw himself into battle.

How many were there anyway? Felix can’t seem to recall clearly. He’s tired.

The snow is too cold—cold everywhere.

Felix hates it.

The girl keeps praying, which is strange and genuinely uncomfortable. Felix doesn’t need her thanks, doesn’t need her prayers to a goddess whose truth was fabricated by her church. Felix doesn’t like it, has never liked it. It’s too cold.

He wants to hide somewhere warm.

And that thought, somehow, of course, was enough.

Felix doesn’t remember brushing off all the snow, but he wants to get warm. And it’s cold. Snow blankets the forest, and it’s cold. It’s only him and the girl and the blood tinting white with a red akin to roses. He wants to go somewhere warm.

The snow is too strong, and the closest home left is one that he had long abandoned — ironically, funnily. Felix chooses to go somewhere else. Somewhere warmer than a home no longer inhabited, no longer flowing with any life Felix is familiar with.

He doesn’t remember dusting the snow off, but he walks. The girl is the one that carries his sword. He’s too tired to take it from her, but he slows his steps enough for her to follow. He knows, after all, that Sylvain would not mind this addition. Would not mind caring for another also battered by the cold. He’s cared enough back then, didn’t he? There was fighting, and he cared. He cared about Felix. He would care for her too.

So he walks, Felix walks as far as he could. His blurry eyes are all that leads him, the feel of the snow is no longer something he can truly feel. He’s too cold.

He wants to be warm.

So he walks, he keeps walking. Felix keeps walking. The girl follows. He can’t hear properly anymore, not clearly, he wonders if the labored breathing is his or the child’s.

Not long now though, he thinks, because he knows even before he had fought the thieves, their number no longer clear to him, that he was at the border. It was at the border of two things that formed a part of his past. Sylvain’s home is on this side. Felix keeps walking.

And it’s exhausting, the cold making sure it would be. It’s tiring how he walks, keeps walking. He doesn’t know how long he walks, doesn’t check how tired his legs are, how much of the cold has seeped through. Felix only knows to keep walking. He wants to be warm.

The child follows. She follows long enough, tired and exhausted just like him. They make it to the manor in that state.

Felix tries his best to drag himself to the door, all his energy focused on his steps. He wants to be the first, but the girl overtakes his step, breaking out into a run with whatever’s left of her own energy. Her face is wet, Felix sees. He wonders if the wet is from the snow, from her tears, if the wetness on his face is also from the snow or from his tears.

And he sees her knock first, frantic and desperate, and Felix keeps walking towards the door like her. It’s hard, it’s annoying. It’s as if every step he takes makes it a thousand steps farther. He wants to be warm, so he keeps walking. The little girl keeps knocking.

Frantic knocking and a slow paced stride. Felix continues just enough, enough to know that the warmth will be within his grasp soon. Sylvain is warm. He’ll let him stay for a few days, possibly. His bed has always been warm, and his arms just as much. Felix knows.

Miraculously, the girl’s continuous knocking is enough, finally good enough. Enough for Felix to stand right where the door is. He ignores what his legs must feel, he no longer checks. He doesn’t know anymore how much of the snow has blanketed him. He wants to be warm.

The knocking is enough, and Sylvain is the one who even opens the door, confusion so clear in his expression. His features, tired as it is, makes Felix lift his hand.

Felix wants—wants to reach out, to hold.

It’s cold, Felix feels cold. He reaches out, and his hand is so, so close enough that Sylvain even looks at him. And Felix smirks at the expression, the delirium altering his thoughts. Sylvain looks funny, his face looks funny. So Felix smiles. He smiles and closes his eyes as soon as Sylvain widens his own. Some part of Felix thinks it’d be both amusing and irritating to have Sylvain nurse him.

Ah, Sylvain will keep him warm. Felix is sure of that. He closes his eyes.

He doesn’t see Sylvain blink twice, wonder about what he saw, about the cold and the red so clear in the bright snow. Sylvain looks at the space Felix just occupied and wonders and wonders and wonders. Some sort of chill seeping in him that is in no way contributed by the cold.

But then he looks down, and he sees the girl and her crying face, clutching a sword so tight. He watches her, numb all over, and he hears her frantic and exhausted voice trying its best to explain the last words of the swordsman that saved her life, and Sylvain—he understands.


End file.
